Award-winning map inspired by geodesic domes

The AuthaGraph World Map, a proportionally accurate projection that finally represents earth’s neglected continents, was bestowed the grand prize at Japan’s Good Design Awards last month.

Narukawa, a 45-year-old architect who studied the tenets of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome and the optical illusions of M.C. Escher, runs a design firm in Tokyo specializing in the everyday applications of geometry. After experimenting with several area-mapping techniques, he found that by dividing a sphere in 96 equal triangles one could produce an accurate flat map that can be folded in any shape while retaining cartographic accuracy.